Craig Evans is a well-known evangelical scholar and writer. Since 2016 he has been Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins at Houston Baptist University and before that taught at Acadia Divinity College from 2002-2015. This volume is a topical introduction to the Bible for lay people and those with little knowledge of biblical revelation. It covers key issues about the Bible from an apologetic viewpoint that seeks to explain what the Bible is and why it is important to listen to its message. Evans answers common objections to the Bible and presents the biblical worldview in an appealing manner. As a type of study guide each chapter closes with two or three points under the heading “Why Does This Matter to Me?” The emphasis is on practicality and challenges readers to search for truth.  There is a mild philosophical touch to the writing but without being offensive or overbearing.

The first two divisions of this 13 chapter volume explore “What Is the Bible?” (chapters 1-2) and “What Is the Bible About?” (chapters 3-9) and take up 170 pages.  Evans explains the Bible’s two testaments, the original languages of the Bible, the Apocrypha, and literary genres. Unfortunately, he asks whether the great Flood and the Tower of Babel are “historical narratives or parables” (p. 28), and conveys in note #18 on p. 248 that “truth is often conveyed in parables” when referencing Genesis 1-11 and refers readers to Peter Enns’ The Evolution of Adam (Brazos, 2012). I appreciated, however, Evans’ explanation of Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:28-30 that “Jesus evidently expected his own disciples, at a time known only to God, to form a new government, to sit on thrones judging (in the sense of administering, not in the sense of condemning) the twelve tribes. The reference to the ‘twelve tribes’ also implies that Jesus fully expected the restoration of Israel—all Israel” (p. 134). He also rebuffs the idea of “some interpreters, that Gentiles or Christians replace the Jewish people. Such an interpretation is anachronistic and inaccurate” (p. 134).

Craig A. Evans from CraigAEvans.com

Evans’ third and final section answers “Common Questions about the Bible” and numbers 60 pages. There are four chapters in Part Three. The first and longest of these chapters deals with how to interpret the Bible. Evans recommends the popular books by Fee and Stuart (How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book by Book), as well as N. T. Wright’s the Bible for Everyone series published by Westminster John Knox. Chapter 11 ably deals with the question of violence and anger in the Bible including God’s commands for Israel to conquer the Land of Canaan and kill off its wicked inhabitants. Chapter 12 features brief explanations of 22 archaeological finds that support the Bible’s truthfulness or credibility in one way or another. They include the Rosetta Stone from Egypt and the “Pilate Stone” from Caesarea, the Caiaphas, James, and Yehohanan ossuaries, the “Jesus Boat” from the Sea of Galilee, the Gallio inscription from Delphi, and the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran just to name a few.

Editor Introduction: For many Pentecostals and charismatics, John MacArthur’s 2013 book, Strange Fire, represents the same tired arguments used for years by those who believe God is done giving gifts to his church. PneumaReview.com asked The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship President, Robert Graves, about their response, their first published book, Strangers to Fire: When Tradition Trumps Scripture.

PneumaReview.com: What was the reason for creating this anthology? Is it merely to offer an answer to John MacArthur’s Strange Fire?

Cover for the November 2016 re-release by Empowered Life.

Robert Graves: John MacArthur’s book presented an opportunity to show that there is a scholarly side to Pentecostalism. It’s not just fire—there’s a great deal of light! A response to Strange Fire allowed us to show that other side. When I read Strange Fire, I detected a bit of embarrassment on MacArthur’s side as he tried to woo back to the cessationist side some scholarly minds that had seen the failure of cessationism, that is, it’s failure to correctly interpret and apply the Scriptures. The Foundation’s anthology, Strangers to Fire: When Tradition Trumps Scripture, displays the other side of Pentecostalism, that is, the scholarly side. It’s also a side that the average Pentecostal needs to see; they need to know that there are teachers they can go to for truth when errant Pentecostal teachers go off course, not just errant cessationists.

PneumaReview.com: There are some that still believe that the renewal movements of the Pentecostals and charismatics have produced few scholars or theologians, but the list of contributors to Strangers to Fire defies that idea. Would you take the time to introduce us to each of the writers appearing in this volume and how they are contributing to renewal theology today? It is a long list, but there are many students and church leaders that do not yet know who these scholars are or how many Christian traditions they represent.

Robert Graves presenting at the 2014 meeting of Society for Pentecostal Studies.

Robert Graves: Allow me to begin with a summary: there are twenty-six authors and thirty-five chapters, obviously, some wrote more than one chapter; for instance, there are three chapters by Jack Deere and three by Jon Ruthven. Almost all of the contributions were previously published, so the anthology serves more as a clearinghouse or convenient compendium of first-class scholarly responses to cessationism than a source of new ideas (I must note as an exception Paul Elbert’s chapter “Face to Face: Then or Now? An Exegesis of First Corinthians 13:8–13,” which alone is worth the price of the book; it’s been around for awhile as a paper read at the Society for Pentecostal Studies, but it was never published). A number of the authors I do not personally know, but my best guess is that 14 of them are classical Pentecostals, six of them have Baptist backgrounds, three have Reformed backgrounds, one is an Anglican, and one comes from a Methodist background. Most of those who come from non-Pentecostal backgrounds would now consider themselves to be Charismatic or Third Wave. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Stanley M. Burgess is Professor of Religious Studies at Southwest Missouri State University. He received a BA and MA from the University of Michigan and a PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has taught history for 57 years and was Distinguished Professor of Christian History, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia (2004–2011). He has written numerous scholarly articles on church history and the history of Christianity as well as several scholarly books, including The Spirit and the Church: Antiquity (Hendrickson), The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions (Hendrickson), and The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions (Hendrickson).

Randy Clark is the Overseer of Global Awakening and the Apostolic Network of Global Awakening. He has ministered for over 43 years in 45 countries; he pastored for over 30 years. He received an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, a DMin from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio (a United Methodist seminary), and a ThD from Phoenix University of Theology (not ATS accredited). He was ordained in the General Baptist denomination in 1971, the American Baptist in 1975, the Vineyard in 1984, and the Apostolic Network of Global Awakening in 2006. He has authored over twenty books, training manuals, and workbooks, including There Is More and The Essential Guide to Healing (along with co-author Bill Johnson); compiled and contributed to Power, Holiness, and Evangelism and Supernatural Missions. He had vision for an institute to verify healings which has become a reality, the Christian Medical Research Institute.org. He is the president of Global School of Supernatural Ministry.

A challenge to church leaders about social justice, a guest article about Hariette Beecher Stowe and William Wells Brown.

Even though William Wells Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe speak from widely divergent backgrounds (black/white, slave/free, male/female, richer/poorer), their concerns unite when they speak about the pivotal role which Christian Education assumed for itself in the lives of antebellum slaves. As will be seen in this short essay, Stowe and Brown recognize not just the Bible hermeneutics of the oppressor, but also the application of the same through catechesis to the lives of the oppressed. Brown’s chapter “The Religious Teacher” appearing in his novel Clotel, Or the President’s Daughter; and Stowe’s, chapter “Topsy” located in her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; reference a very common practice amongst slave holders, the use of catechisms.[1]

As regards the narrators’ perspective in these passages, Stowe looks especially from without to within with full compassion, but with the limited access of a non-slave. Her narrator voice, naturally different from Brown’s, is a voice affected by looking across the Ohio River. Biographer Noel Gerson explains how

In 1833 … Harriet Beecher Stowe first became aware of the slavery as a living institution. In New England she had politely deplored slavery as an abstraction and remained untouched… But no one who lived in Cincinnati could ignore the challenge of slavery which existed across the Ohio in Kentucky. (Harriet 36)

Even as narrator Stowe sees an enslaved community by looking across the Ohio, Brown looks at and within his community, looking across to the oppressed. As a slave participant, Brown certainly sees what an antebellum white normally cannot; Stowe as an abolitionist white woman sees many times what a White man won’t. What antebellum Whites cannot or will not see concern both Stowe and Brown.

Specifically, in Brown’s “The Religious Teacher”, social control shapes a Bible hermeneutic favoring those who tower above, the slave owners. Human owners of other humans equate their words with God’s words, establishing oppressive norms to become the locus of authority. Twice in the catechetical moments of this chapter, Brown represents how religious slave owners read the New Testament to slaves who, interestingly, cannot read for themselves: “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart fearful, fearing God” (an isolated quotation of Colossians 3:-23); and, “He that knoweth his Master’s will, and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes” (a quotation of Luke 12:47, a phrase removed for social expediency from its original New Testament context). Furthermore, Brown unites these catechetical questions and answers, the call and response, with a then commonly held belief. Africans bear in their persons the curse of Ham: “The Lord intended the Negros for Slaves” (“The Religious Teacher”). For Brown, masters do more than speak for God. They speak as god.